This is definitely not the impact we wanted from globalization. While growth is encouraged with industrialization we forget the mass of this countries economy that feeds us.

Why so much despair, that it needs must push to suicide by farmers?

• Farming inputs( seeds, fertilizers , manure, water, implements) becoming more and more expensive.

• The fertilizer trap, the more you depend on them the more you need them since more pests become resistant to them. Use of genetically modified seeds some of which though pest resistant give poor yields.
Vandana Shiva, world-renowned environmental leader and thinker says:

Today’s trade system, especially in agriculture, is dishonest, and dishonesty has become a war against farmers. It’s become a genocide.

• Indiscriminate extraction of the groundwater through tube wells resulting in grave problems of sustainability and major damage to the water table levels.

• Too much dependence on moneylenders, history repeats itself?

• Since the 1980s, there has been a steady and massive decline in public investment in agriculture. There have been reduced agricultural subsidies by the government.

• Agriculture is always risky and even more so in this age of global warming. Farmers are not getting used to changing weather patterns caused by global warming.

What can be done?

• Farmers should use their own seeds instead of genetic hybrids, the natural way is always the best .

• They should take up original organic farming using home-grown compost and pesticides such as neem oil and cow’s urine.

• Proper implementation of watershed development should be taken up by the government.
• Encouraging the concept of weather and crop insurance amongst farmers.

• Encouraging local women’s institutions for marketing outputs and purchasing agricultural inputs.

Agriculture feeds a country, Real development is always at the grassroot level with improvements in the lives of the farmers of the smallest village.

Via: Hindu